Friday, July 28, 2017

Republican senators Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, and John McCain defied their President and their Republican Senate leadership and voted against the last ditch attempt by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Thank goodness.I give a special salute to John McCain who postponed his treatment for brain cancer to come back to the Senate. He voted Yes to allow debate and amendments to the Republican plans - a dignified approval of the democratic process. And he voted No to the Republican efforts to overthrow Obamacare - a compassionate caring for the people of America. His biggest message to Congress is to stop the blind dogmatic opposition to the Other Party, reach across the isle and fix and improve the current health care system. Of course, that is the obvious solution. Obvious facts - repealing Obamacare will put somewhere between 15 and 30 million people without health care. The conservative dismissal of that idea is that many of those people would be young and healthy people who don't want health care. But the liberal rejoinder is that without the healthy in the insurance pools the cost for the sick, the infants, and the elderly would be prohibitive and they would not be able to afford health care. The result would be all of these people would not have regular check ups and would not have preventative health care, and they would end up in emergency rooms with advanced stages of illness and injury that would further drive up insurance costs, driving more people out of insurance, creating more unhealthy going to emergency rooms, etc. etc. etc. I side with the liberal argument because I believe it makes the most sense, and it is the most compassionate.Unfortunately, the Heartless-In-Chief immediately declared he would "let" Obamacare fail - that is to say, he will continue his cruel sabotage of Obamacare. States that worked constructively with Obamacare have had good health care, and states that sabotaged Obamacare have had bad health care for their people. Those that will continue to sabotage the existing law will make life much more miserable and dangerous for their people.But, today, I salute and honor these three Republicans with a heart.

Tuesday, July 25, 2017

There may be hope for America after all. The House and the Senate voted 419 - 3 and 98 - 2 to sanction Russia for interfering with our elections AND gives Congress veto power over the president if he tries to relax the sanctions. Plus, some of the penalties have been converted to law, making it even harder for Trump to statisfy his Russian puppet masters. Also sanctioned are North Korea and Iran. Trump doesn't get to be king. He is getting away with a lot, but I am happy to see both sides of the isle putting him in his place regarding Russian sanctions.

Friday, July 21, 2017

It is already obvious that our president is emotionally
unstable, impulsive, willfully ignorant, and childish. But, is he also just dumb? How about some evidence?

The first thing he did was attack the media. But, the media’s entire job is to find things
out. And Trump has things to hide.

The next thing he did is attack his own intelligence
services. But, the intelligence services
entire job is to find things out. And Trump has things to hide.

The next thing he did was attack the judicial system when he fired James Comey who was heading up the FBI’s investigation
into Russian interference in the election and possible conspiracy between
Russia and the Trump campaign. But that
just caused the Attorney General’s office to appoint Robert Mueller as a
special investigator into this very issue.
And it is these people’s entire job to find things out.

Then, he just recently implied that if Mueller investigates
his finances rather than just his ties to Russia he might fire him. Isn’t this just telling Mueller what he needs
to investigate? Isn’t he just pointing
him to what he is trying to hide? As one tweeter pointed out, this is like an officer pulling a car over and the driver
says he's done nothing wrong and there is absolutely nothing in the trunk of his car even though you might see blood on the back bumper.

I think that Trump may just be good old fashioned dumb.

But, but, but you say, he is a billionaire. Don’t you have to be smart to be rich? Apparently not. Apparently all you have to do is stiff your
investors, stiff your vendors, screw your customers, borrow money from the
Russian mafia and use your hotels and golf courses to launder dirty Russian money and you too can become a billionaire.
And have a fake reality TV show that pretends you are a smart
businessman.

Next time my conservative friends nominate someone for president I hope
they find someone with more character, dignity, knowledge, and - oh yes – brains.

Tuesday, July 18, 2017

By the way, just in case some of my friends want to think that evidence of Russian interference just isn't there, on election day in South Carolina there were about 150,000 attempts to hack the voting system on election day. Apparently not successful, but we have been warned. Too bad we have a president who is thankful for Russian interference on his behalf rather than a president who sees the danger to American democracy and to America itself.

Tuesday, July 11, 2017

Apparently Donald Trump
Jr. has the nickname of "Fredo" amongst Trump campaign staff,
referring to the incompetent son of mob boss, Vito Corleone, in the movie “The
Godfather”. Even amongst the low standards of ethics and wisdom of
the Trump world Trump Jr. seems to set a low bar. Recent revelations show that
he took a meeting with a Russian operative on the promise that he would receive
damaging opposition research from the Russians. Remember that Russia is a
hostile foreign power whose boss, Putin, is dedicated to weakening America any way that
he can.

This is direct evidence that:

·Russia was interfering in our American elections

·Russia was interfering so as to defeat Clinton and elect Trump

·the Trump campaign was willing to work with the hostile foreign
power, Russia, to defeat Clinton.

"The
June 3, 2016, email sent to Donald Trump Jr. could hardly have been more
explicit: One of his father’s former Russian business partners had been
contacted by a senior Russian government official and was offering to provide
the Trump campaign with opposition research on Hillary Clinton.

The
documents “would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be
very useful to your father,” read the email, written by a trusted intermediary,
who added, “This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is
part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.”

If
the future president’s elder son was surprised or disturbed by the provenance
of the promised material — or the notion that it was part of a continuing
effort by the Russian government to aid his father’s campaign — he gave no
indication.

He
replied within minutes: “If it’s what you say I love it especially later in the
summer.”

*******

Donald
Trump Jr. agreed, adding that he would most likely bring along “Paul Manafort
(campaign boss)” and “my brother-in-law,” Jared Kushner, now one of the
president’s closest White House advisers.

On
June 9, the Russian lawyer was sitting in the younger Mr. Trump’s office on the
25th floor of Trump Tower, just one level below the office of the future
president."

So,
what should Jr, and (Manafort and Kushner) have done? Inform the FBI! This is a
serious crime against our very democracy itself.

"When Gore campaign was sent Bush
debate brief book, they called FBI. If foreign interests offer you info on
former SOS, you call the FBI.

It has never been much of a
mystery why Trump has been trying to stop the investigation into conspiracy
between the Trump campaign and hostile foreign power of Russia. Just win baby? Even if it takes an act of treason to do so? Well, let’s hope that these remarkably
corrupt people do not get away with it.

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About Me

I am a boomer who has been both a left winger and a right winger and am seeking to add some soothing energy to the inflamed polarizations of today's rhetoric. However, in the age of extremist Republicanism I see the best way to soothe the waters is to oppose the inflammations from the Right, and the Left as needed.